Rasputin Blues
by arkasha1983
Summary: A few months after Irina's death, Arkady Renko gets assigned a new case that will bring him to discover the dark secrets of the Russian underworld.
1. Chapter 1

Arkady pushed his palm against the cold wall of the interrogation room, turning white into blood red – his blood. He stumbled to his feet, cigarette still dangling from the corner of his mouth. The room was silent now. Silent except for the man yelling in the back of his head. YOU KILLED HER RENKO! YOU LET HER DIE. He let his forehead slip in the skin-cradle between index and thumb, and rubbed slowly.

YOU LET HER DIE. One drag, and out. Getting beaten to a pulp by a man you had only seen once in your life, at 7:30 AM on a rainy Moscow morning was only second to downing American vodka at the first dinner party with your in-laws, Arkady thought. Talking about mortgage rates, grinning until your face went numb. But that was a long ago and now he felt numb all over, inside and out, and for all the wrong reasons.

Footsteps down the hallway were still going crazy; the gum of dirty boots angling the floor in impossible positions, trying every goniometric combination to stand their ground. HE LET HER DIE! HE LET HER DIE! The rustle of old cloth, neatly-ironed cloth, worn-out jackets, uniforms, one single patched-up sweater, elbows and knees and shoulders and somebody's neck maybe, locking in a shower of hisses and hushes, "Cut it out, Comrade!", "Take him away, take him away!"

He nearly burned what was left of his split lip with the stump of that Belomor. In his mind, he repeated the word like a mantra. _Let, let, let._ He hated it. Letting time pass, possibly letting that last breath leave her body, wasting time, a waste of life. Well, lives. Comrade, this wasn't my first time, Arkady almost whispered to himself, a bitter smile stretching on his underslept face. _Her._ Yes, but which one? He moved closer to the window.

A boy of 9 years old, he had let his mother drown, even helped her. He had collected stones around the dacha for afternoons on end, his father too tired to notice his scratched knees, his dirty nails, her dried cheeks, when he came home in the evening. An early start, but he hadn't bettered his technique – he didn't need that. A natural talent for disaster.

A man of 33, he came back to Irina's hospital bed just to find it empty. The space of a cigarette down the street, a medical mishap, an allergic reaction to an antibiotic he knew about – he could have told them. He should have been there. Instinctive pictures of the woman he loved on the coroner's death-bed made something behind his navel itch and twitch.

But this time was different, Arkady concluded. He replayed the motions, the blurred goodbyes, running in the dark, a door getting shut in his face, losing consciousness. He had no idea where he went wrong, he couldn't remember. And he had no innocence now, he had no love he could give, risk, lose.

"Are you okay in here?" A nervous knock on the door, a rugged face peeking into the room. Bogdan looked exhausted as he shut the door behind his back with the light, backward movement of his worn-out dress shoe's tip. Arkady noticed that he was now standing right in the middle of the window frame, facing the glass, the rain, facing the busy, almost neurotic street down below. Forehead leaning on the pane, his right arm framing the top of his head.

"You look pretty fucked up, _Comrade_." And he was, both of them, not much to his great enjoyment. Nonetheless, Arkady kind of appreciated the subtle humor, thin as Lake Baikal's ice. He almost smiled in his head. That was typical Bogdan Huseynov, the 40-something disillusioned Detective Lieutenant who had taken him under his wing after the Irina accident. When Arkady almost thought of moving for good somewhere in the Siberian steppe, wasting away his nights sleeping in the car, motor running; and while nobody else's telephone calls could extract a mere "Yes" or "No" from his mouth, were they painful, rotten teeth, Bogdan kept knocking on Arkady's apartment's door until the "gloomy bastard" – as he called him – resolved himself to come back to the Department and sign up for a little job.

"You know, this is starting to wear you out. I talked Sokolov into getting you involved just so you could get you back on track, you know, sparkle up your daily life a bit," he gestured with his hand "not to fucking ruin you", Bogdan kept going, as Arkady still fixed his eyes on the road, no words. "Come on now, Arkady. This is no good." Arkady slowly turned, his head starting to really throb.

He looked at Bogdan, "Everything is under control, Bodya. I'll be fine." A flash of genuine concern seemed to cross the Lieutenant's dark eyes for a second there, or perhaps just light shifting from cloud to cloud, rain still falling down. He felt them inspecting something that must have gone really wrong around his right temple and eye, maybe black and blue in a couple of hours too. Arkady stood still as Bogdan's arm reached out and pulled the stump from his lips in a slow, smooth movement. He didn't even flinch when the man kept talking, his caring gesture just mere punctuation in some "get your shit together" type of conversation.

"This is gonna make things at least two thousand times more complicated. How much does Yuri Stepanovich know? And more importantly, Arkasha, how much do you know?"

"About him? I know that he has no idea. About pretty much anything. Also, he has a heavy jab. Likes to fight dirty, won't think twice about slamming your head into the wall while you're facing it. He doesn't have much lateral view though, and he really lacks intuition."

"Apparently he knows enough to come and find you here. And by the way, stop doing that" Bogdan gestured at the papers and documents scattered across the metal table, hand pausing imperceptibly in the general direction of one of the two chairs, knocked over, "working here, not even in your office, that is."

"I haven't had an office for more than ten months now."

"I'm working on that. Didn't exactly help that you cleaned up your room and left without notice last time. No letter, not a piece of paper. Not even a fuck-you-morons."

"My wife died."

Bodgan squeezed the bridge of his nose between index and thumb, "For Christ's sake, Arkady, go home. Get some sleep."

"I have to find this woman, Bodya. I can't let this one go, not just yet."

"I thought you knew where she was. I thought you said everything was under control. You must have some idea." Bogdan shook his head as Arkady moved his lips to articulate a diversion, and calmly put one palm up. "Don't even do that, I don't want to know. I'll know when I need to know and you need to do what you know. Also you know what you need to do. Oh, fuck it. Just keep it to yourself, Arkasha."

Bogdan concluded his statement (turned monologue by Arkady's absolute outer indifference) by nodding a single nod, his eyes narrowing, a lazy attempt to focus on the next step, possibly Arkady's next fall and multiple bone fracture. Arkady started patting his dress jacket for a new cigarette as Bogdan moved for the door and then turned back to him again, hand on handle, "By the way pal, your gun is on the floor", he arched his chin briefly to one corner of the room, "Call me if you need me. Whistle if you need to get rescued."


	2. Chapter 2

Arkady couldn't remember snow being this hard to run on. His boots sunk in the soft white mantle over Gorky Park, his route unsteady, his legs like those of a drunk trying to find the way back home after waking up on the sidewalk, blinded by the morning sun. He kept fixing his somehow teary eyes on the back of her synthetic fur-coat, just a dark spot floating far ahead, moving effortlessly from tree to tree, graceful and light like January's icy breeze.

"Irina! Irina, wait!" and her echo was nothing but feeble, distant laughter. He himself bared his teeth in a smile, catching his breath, sunlight pouring through birch leaves, gold and white, white and gold all around. And the sound of her mocking, volatile happiness. Then nothing.

Out of breath, palms grabbing at his knees, he stopped. He kept calling, hands now cupping his mouth, "Irina, please! Irina! Irina!" But no echo met him nor his pounding heart. No tracks marked that still ocean of snow in crisp, static waves ahead of him. Everything fell desperately calm, silence almost driving him crazy. She was gone without a trace. Still calling, he started running again, but this time directionless. It burned to breathe. In a frenzy, hands scything away at every bush, he moved faster and faster, stumbling and aching, damning every birch, every bird, every pound of snow. "IRINA!"

A twitch around his ankle, a muffled muscular snap, and he was on the ground. He rolled on his back, the sun burning brighter. His face felt warm. If I were snow, Arkady thought, if I were snow I too would melt away. She's gone, but I'm almost as cold. Am I snow yet? Am I gone yet?

He woke up in a cold sweat. He followed with his mind the movement of a lazy hand hovering on his chest, pressing on it as if to try and steady his cardiac rhythm. No chance. Arkady realized that his shirt was drenched. That was the same bloodied shirt he was wearing when Yuri Stepanovich decided to test his bone resilience by slamming him into a wall, a snow angel pressed in concrete. And brass knuckles, side blows, the whole package – apparently, "Stepanovich" had taken his role quite seriously. Arkady checked his wrist-watch. That was roughly 2 hours earlier, and he was at least 50 blocks away from the Militsiya Criminal Investigation Department where it all had happened.

He didn't like this new apartment, but Bogdan suggested he'd find another accommodation for the time being. "Until you're grief sober, death sober, love sober", that's what the man had told him. Far from the melancholy-bounded furnishing of his life with Irina, away from his poetry books, her ice skates, the fresh flowers always in the vase on the living room's table, the crystal ashtray she had bought for him, their brand new TV set, more books, an inherited samovar, some of his father's guns, his neatly pressed shirts, her summer dresses, a few framed pictures of them smiling, holding hands, looking pensive, caught off-guard, looking at each other. Arkady realized how the bedroom smelled of mold and dust. As usual, and more so.

He shook his head and sat up on the bed. He couldn't indulge in the past, he couldn't plunge into what he was, not even in thought. There were days when the man he used to be seemed not only distant but unreal, a black and white photograph, front page on some old-newspaper, crumpled, teared, blurred and beaten by the rain. He was unsure whether happiness had really ever stroked him, even for a moment – much like brushing the skin of an unknown passer-by, idle knuckles against idle knuckles on a grey, busy morning. That was it. He kicked off his shoes, freed himself of the wet, tight grip of his shirt and slowly started walking to the bathroom.

Meeting his eyes in the mirror was almost painful, and light-bulb light just plain cruel. He looked away and focused on the dirty sink instead, then let water flow. Somehow, after more or less than eight months, he still had to get used to this pale man and his pale chest, covered in tattoos that meant nothing to him; some just temporary, some other permanent – once again, Bogdan's idea.

He repeated the inventory in his head: fake, fake, fake, real, real, real. The huge orthodox cross in the middle of his thorax was fake, he didn't care for that. Stalin's face on his right pectoralis major was fake as well, something Bogdan had suggested for protection, "They would never knife the bastard, the idiots", he had told him. A rose bloomed on his left pectoralis, but that was a lie – he hadn't spent his 18th birthday in prison, although the story had impressed the whole gang, or at least earned him silent nods. At 18, Arkady re-winded, he was too busy with his poetry, his studies, day-dreaming, first loves, music. The stars below his clavicles were real, he had earned them – Yannis, his assigned _brat_ in crime, energy-crazed flat-mate and gang's ink expert, was instructed to give him those. The small Greek had completed the craft by patting Arkady on the back vigorously and yelling, "Isn't it a fine job? Don't they look great on you? Am I not a _genius?"_ Those stars were the dark, pointy-shaped seals marking how Arkady had reached the top of the Elite Unit – he himself, the Comrade Investigator turned Russian Mob Brigadier. A real Thief in Law.

Black ink, skin deep. Weird how a bunch of vicious pictures could be enough to save a man's life on a daily basis, Arkady thought as he splashed dried blood off his face; weird how ink could change a man's present, a man's future, and his past too. Well, not everything about his past. In an alcohol-fueled impetus of recklessness, he still had given in to Yannis' stick and poke enthusiasm and asked of having Irina's name tattooed above the cross. The title of my condemn, he thought. He sunk his face in a towel.

When he raised it again to check the cabinet for some gauze, a cigarette-squeezing smirk was standing three steps behind him in the mirror. Yannis almost chewed on his Belomor, his eyes violently lighting up with surprise, "God, look at that! What the hell happened to your face? You missed breakfast, brother. I made some pretty decent eggs."

Arkady couldn't help but weakly smile back. Although the lean dark man must have been at least 6 inches shorter than he was, and by all means lighter, he both out-weighted and out-heighted him on a vitality level. Anybody in the _bratva_ knew how Yannis Kasyenko could be stressful to be around; hot-blooded, stubborn, volatile and loud – but Arkady didn't mind. He figured someone had to play that part, and it couldn't be him. It could have never been him, so Yannis was there. Thinking back on it, he couldn't have hoped for a better _brat_ to greet and guide him through the whole situation, even if he was now one step above him. He met Yannis' bewildered gaze for a moment in the mirror, and then opened the cabinet to resume his search for gauze.

"Not in the mood to talk, are we? So what's new!" Yannis didn't sound resentful, but sincerely entertained. He was the kind of guy who smoked his cigarette with the burning end almost stroking the skin of his palm, which was exactly how he did it, in quick and nervous puffs. "It's okay" he continued, starting to roll his shirt sleeves, "I'll just guess. You can take your time, big guy", and his grin was as wide as ever.

Arkady restrained a sigh as he finally grabbed a roll of gauze tape from the back of the cabinet, "Are we out of disinfectant?" There was no way to dodge it with this guy. "Anyway, it's nothing really. I had a minor run-in with…"

"Viktor Makarovich?" Yannis interrupted.

"No."

"Pavel Voloshin?"

"No, it was…"

"Yan Gusarov?"

"No, but you're close."

"Vasil Arsenyev? Could be, judging by the size of that bruise…"

"Alright. Yuri Stepanovich dropped by the club last night. He said we were holding out on him, that we didn't respect sharing agreements." Arkady turned to Yannis, gauze in hand. Deep down he hated lying to him, but he had known from the start how sincerity could have never been an option. He continued, "He was quite mad about us… _interrupting_ his card game last week, said that we should pay back what we took by loosening the grip on the Presnensky District. As if."

"That fatso! I really hope his face looks worse than yours. You need stitches, Arkasha. Give me that gauze. Sit on the tub. Disinfectant… we have lots of vodka in the kitchen." Arkady didn't flinch as he watched Yannis snapping his fingers and dictating his ideas as they crossed his mind – he really went 100 kilometres per second, and then he was out of the bathroom. Calmly, Arkady leaned out of the door-frame and continued blowing up his explanation in the general direction of the hallway, "Of course I told him that there was no way we would do that. He's bluffing, he can't really mean it. His gang doesn't have any real connections around Presnensky, or anywhere else."

"Yeah, yeah!" He could hear Yannis fumbling with glasses from the kitchen.

"They've just kept losing men for years, one way or another. They can't be trusted and they can't trust anybody, with the history they have. We are their only link. Let's say their only hope not to disintegrate."

Yannis rushed back into the bathroom, holding metal scissors, sewing thread, some paper, two glasses and a bottle of vodka he then proceeded to open with his teeth and slam on the washing machine. "I just can't believe he dared to do that. They fucking know who you are. Igor Brusilov is going to be very happy about this!" Yannis slightly tilted his head back and let himself go to a loud laughter. Arkady really thought that with his strong jaw, sharp nose and wide eyes, the young man really reminded him of a baby crocodile. His outburst of joy stopped suddenly. "I mean, he probably knows by now, right? But we're going to tell him anyway."

"He probably does. We probably should."

"First thing first. Sit down now." Only slightly worried, Arkady adjusted himself on the cold edge of the tub, as Yannis handed him a full glass. "One for the wound and one for the man", he announced loudly, half-solemnly "and one for the surgeon here" he declared, proceeding to down his own dose. "Now hold your breath, sit very still. I'm kind of rusty."


	3. Chapter 3

Yannis drove around the Gagarinskv District like a madman, one hand loosely around the wheel, the other either running through the side of his raven-black hair, snapping fingers to the radio ("God, that's some depressing crap! I'd sure love some old-school sirtaki"), or adjusting the rear-view mirror in absolutely inconsequential positions. Arkady had learned months and months earlier how his younger companion barely ever fixed his eyes on the road; at this point, after enduring Yannis' stubborn recklessness for way too long, Arkady was positive that any other driving style would have caused him to throw up. As they say - he thought - adapt, survive, crash your vehicle into the Moskva river.

"Could you lit me one?" Yannis asked, steering abruptly to the right and bending his head to the same side, cigarette dangling from his mouth, almost over the stick shift. Arkady didn't even attempt to sigh as he stiffly spun the lighter bright, his eyes once again the only pair on the road.

"We're driving on the sidewalk, Vanya."

"It's ok, everybody knows me around here", the Greek exhaled with a smile, "Oh yeah baby, that's much better", he pointed the car to the middle of the road as smoke twirled around him, "How's your cheekbone, by the way?"

"Sore. But you sew it real tight. No risk of bleeding to death today."

"This sarcasm of yours. That's it, you can't admit I saved your ass!" Yannis laughed, "But yeah, today is definitely not your day, Arkasha. Listen to me right now, once we tell Igor, this is going to be huge. It's going to blow up right into their ugly faces." He lifted both hands from the wheel and slammed them back on it, before tightening the grip again, "I just wish Vika was here to see this. She'd love this." He shook his head energetically, holding the Marlboro between his teeth, "God, I miss that lady."

Vika, yes – the name hit Arkady like a punch in the chest, and one to restart his heart to a wild, new, perversely lethal rhythm. Viktoria Olegovna, whom he had spent the past 2 weeks looking for. The woman who went missing, the one he had half-lied about to everybody, Bogdan included. As Yannis' black Lada slithered like a venomous insect past rows of tall pale buildings, images of the first time he saw Viktoria seemed to take form in his mind. Better than Soviet architecture, he debated with himself, but just as bitter.

The first time he saw her, he spent it in silence, in the darkness of a crowd. From up the stage where she was standing, singing languidly – almost casually – a heart-consuming and haunting melody, Arkady had probably appeared to her as just another face drowning in soft red light, gaze lingering from the bottom of the glass to her luminous face and then to the bottom again.

When the song was over, lights on again, Jakov and a couple of his men (Vlad, Misha and Vitaly) had all risen up to the their feet with proud impetus, clapping loudly, almost turning over the table – the same Arkady was sitting at, expensive French cognac flowing in honey rivers over the carmine cloth, over his dress pants. Jakov had then proceeded to smack Misha's nape with his cigar hand, a prize for not reacting promptly to his command of elation. After all, Jakov was Igor's son, and Igor was boss of the Smolenskaya _bratva –_ Arkady's adoptive brotherhood.Jakov owned the Rasputin Jazz Club, the drinks were on the house, and Viktoria was his girlfriend. Arkady wasn't sure, but he could swear seeing Vika's cheeks light up in embarrassment at the sight of her beau's behavior.

"I miss her too" Arkady replied, only slightly startled by Yannis' umpteenth unorthodox turn. He swallowed any hesitation, "You know, Stepanovich thinks I got her killed."

Yannis jammed on the brakes – he didn't even do that at red lights, "Stepano—what? That man is even more stupid that I thought. Seriously, what does that motherfucker even know about a girl like Viktoria?"

Arkady didn't reply, and started patting his leather jacket for a cigarette instead. Probably more than we both know, he thought.

Yannis continued, infervorated, "Yeah, I mean. Vika shouldn't have gotten mixed up with bums like us. She had talent, she was beautiful. She had guts! But goddamn, Arkasha, she was like a sister to us. Wasn't she?"

Arkady nodded in silence, pensive.

"To you, me, and Lena too." Lena was Yannis' long-time girlfriend. "Arkasha, she looked at you like you two grew up together. There were times I thought she loved you more than she ever did Jakov."

"I don't know about that."

Yannis just arched his eyebrows upwards in his "Whatever you say, _brat_ " expression.

Maybe she just used me, Arkady thought. Maybe that's me who ruined her, telling her the wrong things at the wrong time, half-hearted. One foot in marble-adorned offices, up in skyscrapers, the other deep in the slime of the gutter. We both knew that half a man wasn't enough for anybody to trust, Arkady kept going in his head, so why did we both pretend the way we chose was the only way out? Up until the moment it wasn't, and then there was no way out at all.

Yannis stopped the car smoothly by the sidewalk, in a long and histrionic slowdown – his "about to do some business" kind of braking. Arkady looked out of the window and over the heads walking relentlessly up and down Tverskoy Boulevard, up to the vaguely baroque sign of the Pushkin Liquor and Tobacco Store. He had memories enclosed in the shop's historic walls, wood embroidered with gold, made somewhat cozy by the blooming marquetry. One of the oldest, most elegant shops in all Moscow. He remembered foiling a robbery there, a one-on-one kind of job; he also remembered his already drunk grandfather holding him by the hand, yelling random lines from The Bronze Horsemen at random customers ("You think you know Aleksander Pushkin? You corrupted minds! You capitalistic swines!").

"That's it?" Arkady asked, "Do you need a re-fill, Vanya?"

"Look Arkasha, it's Friday," Yannis checked his wrist-watch, "It's past noon. I'm hungry, Brusilov is waiting for us at the club, traffic is bad and Sergey Sergeevich over here hasn't been paying his quota for three weeks now."

"Well, that's inconsiderate."

"Believe me, I don't enjoy doing this either. But what did you think I drove all the way here for? To take you on a date at the Bolshoj?"

"I was hoping that." Arkady put out what was left of his Belomor in the car's ashtray, "Wait in the car, Vanya. I'll handle this." Yannis patted him on the shoulder, his crocodile cub smile on, "Don't forget to bring me a pack!", he yelled at Arkady as he entered the shop.

Arkady walked resolutely among the rows of bottled liquid oblivion. He passed by the whiskeys, the white wines, the red wines, the cheap vodka, the expensive vodka, and after a few he stopped even noticing what he was walking by. This time, he didn't notice the carefully crafted ceiling, with its crystal chandeliers and golden framed coffers, the heraldic shields and the bas-reliefs - his mouth didn't hang open in awe like when he was ten, inappropriately baby-sat; he didn't take the time to even side-eye the cream coloured pillars, holding arch-ways and what-not. Some 19th century millionaire from St. Petersburg had wanted that place to resemble a Bacchus Temple. Very Greek, Arkady thought – Yannis would have had something to say about that.

He aimed at the cash-register, the last stand of material comforts: a varied and excessive collection of cigars faced him, parading from giant rococo bookshelves from behind the girl in charge. She smiled at him politely, "Good day, sir. How can I help you?" Arkady noticed her eyes wander casually over his empty hands, and dim consistently with worry.

"Is Sergey Sergeevich here?"

"He just—he's not here today. Is something wrong with the service?"

Arkady felt bad for her. She was way too young, and her wide eyes way too sincere, immaculate. He wondered if wearing something other than a third-hand leather jacket would have made him look somehow kinder, less wickedly run-down.

"Everything's perfect at the moment. I just wanted to talk to him." Something other than a supernova-hued battered face, he added to his mental list. He paused for second. "Just tell him an old friend came to see him, it's really nothing. Name is Renko." He attempted a weak smile.

The girl seemed to smile back, but still uncertain, probably in fear. "An old friend?"

She stretched her arm under the counter, way more than imperceptibly. In a split second, in an electric jolt of both intuition and reflexes, Arkady leaned closer, placing on hand on the desk, the other lightly on her arm.

"Listen to me, there's no need to do that. I've known Sergey for years, and he's in trouble. I give you my word, things are fine right now, but if you don't let me through – it could be too late for me to fix things, later on."

Too cryptic, Arkady thought, or maybe cryptic enough. She looked at him in disbelief, loosening the grip on the gun under the desk.

"I'm sorry" Arkady whispered to her as he walked past the counter and entered the small door squeezed between the cigars shelves.

Sergey's office was a small dusty room at the end of a narrow, creaking stairway. He ran down the steps and knocked on the door. "Sergey! I know you're in there. Open up, it's Renko!"

The old man opened the door almost instantly, gun in hand, and closed it behind Arkady's back without a word. He was shaking, his grey moustache almost black with sweat. As he sunk and sighed in a dusty armchair, one arm limp to the side, the other still holding the gun over his round abdomen, words begin to flow out of him too.

"Renko, thank God it's you. I've been holed up here for two days! I know it's Friday, I know I'm late with the payments, but I'm getting an ulcer over this. They will kill me, won't they? I know I've been—"

"Sergey Sergeevich, it's now or never. You should have let me handle this one week ago. It's time to go."

"But my wife, my daughter! Renko, they will catch up with me anyway. I just can't do this." He kept brushing sweat off his upper lip with the back with his hand.

Arkady was starting to feel impatient, his cheekbone lightly throbbing where Yannis had stitched it, "Sergeevich, stop it! You're not my first and you won't be my last. I talked to Huseynov about this already. Collaborating with the Militsyia is your only choice. We know what we're doing, and you're going! It's either this or your life."

Sergeevich sighed dramatically, "Alright, alright!" He rose up to his feet, walked to his desk – a yellowing pile of papers, empty bottles and other disgusting clutter – "Do you think I should pay something anyway? Just to make sure… _your guys_ won't be after me at all?"

"No guys are my guys. There is no need for money. Just collect your stuff and be alert. Bogdan Huseynov and the other men of the witnesses program will get in touch with you today."

"Just take these as sign of my gratitude," the old man mumbled, stuttering and fidgeting, fumbling like a huge Siberian cat would with the drawers and extracting a carton of Marlboros. "You smoke these, right?"

Arkady nodded in silence, resigned to the man's agitated desperation, but determined not to show him anymore of his temper.

As he walked back to the Lada, he realized Bogdan was right. The rackets, the greed, the "in extremis" situations, the lies, the façade, the fake honor he had gained – it was starting to wear him out. Nobody in the bratva had ever seen him murdering someone, yet his supposed _bratvery_ (Arkady chuckled in his head) had earned him stars, meaningful stares, respect. But men like Sergey Sergeevich, victims to be, they had just disappeared, taken into protection by what Bogdan had re-named, mimicking the Thieves's code, the "Cyka Program." The men of the Smolenskaya had just attributed the lack of bodies to Arkady's professionalism. "You have style, brat", that's what they told him. And this style of his was how Arkady had spent the past ten months. No more, no less.

Yannis had almost dozed off in the Lada, head reclined up against the windowshield, cigarette still dangling. Arkady tapped on the window, startling him up.

"Jesus, it took you ages! Did he have it?"

"Definitely not."

"What did you do, cut off his finger? Set the place on fire? I don't see any flames. I didn't hear anybody scream."

" _When fish starts rotting from the head, you cut off the head."_

"And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"Don't you always say that?"

"Yeah but damn! Not in situations like this. You're a cold-blooded murderer, Arkasha."

"I brought you Marlboros. On the house." Arkady threw the carton at Yannis.

"You're a fucking prince, you know that?" Yannis replied, re-starting the car, "Let's go meet the others at Rasputin's, before the next heads rotting are ours."


	4. Chapter 4

The warm lights in the Jazz Club made the blood-freezing weather outside seem like a distant dream, Arkady thought, but they could have never made up for the icy sensation he felt in his bones every time he walked in. The sting of Moscow's winter had mellowed to just a dull feeling in the soft tissue around his fingers, but something lost somewhere deep inside his ribcage still bothered him.

Igor slammed an empty glass back on the wooden counter, the only logical landing for the impetuous arch going backwards from his apparently quite thirsty mouth. The man, 6 feet and 3 of menacing yet calculated strength, had hands as wide as Russian porcelain plates, were just as white, decorated just the same. Arkady was surprised the glass hadn't shattered, shards and blood sparkling over Igor's tattoed rings, spelling OMYT – _"It is hard to walk away from me."_

"Stepanovich knows something about Vika, the bastard." A red aura seemed not only to surround Igor's sharply sculpted features, but it was more like the man himself emanated that danger hue from himself.

"That's a little far-fetched, papa." shot back Jakov, who was tending the bar. His tone of voice was flat, but his eyebrows arched their way up mischievously. Misha, polishing his gun, and Vlad, doing nothing, side-eyed him in a worried fashion from their stools behind the counter. Vitaly, the last member of Jakov's henchmen triad, had fallen asleep on a velvet sofa on the other side of the room, and snored soundly.

"Every day I should pray and thank the Lord for gifting me with such a son, strong and healthy in his body, whose brain only was damaged during childbirth", Igor replied with unnatural apathy, not even looking at Jakov but smiling wryly to Yannis, perched on a stool next to him, smirking and smoking, one elbow on the counter.

"Cut him some slack, Igor!", the Greek attempted, but still smiling, "What do you think Arkady, did Stepanovich look like he was just making it all up? Could he really know something?"

"Yes, Arkady, tell us. What do you think? Pour this man another one, Jakov, he needs it", Igor re-inforced as his big blond heir in crime just pouted and poured.

"I have no idea," Arkady confessed, "he looked like he wanted to see me exhale my last one on the floor." He adjusted himself on the stool next to Yannis, and proceeded to down his 4:00 PM drink. It occurred to him that he hadn't hit the bottle that _early_ in the day since his exhile in Siberia, after he had fled the country and then come back to protect Irina from the KGB.

"He did come for him to make a point about our influence on Presnensky. I think Vika was just a fucking footnote or something", Yannis finished for him.

"Where exactly did he find you?" Igor asked. Arkady would've been caught off-guard if he hadn't lost his mind thinking through the detail before-hand.

"The tobacco shop on Gorky Street. It was my turn managing the place, collecting earnings. I guess the man knows my routine by now." He had done that, but much earlier than the unexpected attack at the police department – he needed some time off to think about Vika, Igor, Jakov, all of them. Lonely jobs were the only chance he had to catch up on his own thinking, no matter how insistently Bogdan labeled that as "counterproductive."

"Another fat clue that Stepanovich knows more than he leads us to believe. He might be bluffing, playing the offense-defense game. This is a smart man, who thinks all his moves through. Why would he make a scene? Why would he try to even convince us that he cares _so much_ about Viktoria? Our gangs are rivals. Vika was always loyal to us. Isn't that right, son?" Igor spelled out decisively.

Jakov swallowed. His drink, and perhaps his pride too. "I guess so, papa. So you think Stepanovich knows how Vika… where Vika is?" he raised his gaze and then, with increasing agitation, probably channeling his boiling anger to another direction, Jakov continued, "If that's case, we have to do something! We cannot let him get away with this!" His eyes shot daggers to Misha and Vlad, more in search of approvation than intimidation.

"That's not the point. He fucking beat Arkady to a pulp, do you see that?" Yannis butted in, leaning off the counter to gesture vaguely at Arkady's face, sitting behind him from Igor's point of view, so that the crime boss had a complete view of the bruise-disaster, "That means disrespect. I don't know if Yuri Fat-head-ovich forgot about the Thieves code, but we can't let this one ago. Arkady's just as Elite as he is."

Igor nodded in silence, "That's the price one pays when he doesn't want to let go on dirty jobs. Elite or not. That card game? I told you two to stay away from it."

Arkady and Yannis exchanged stares – for once, Vanya hadn't a single excuse ready in his pocket. Arkady could see Jakov's grin expand in his peripheral view. He had to show up at the gamble job to slip a note to some guy who was soon to enter the witness program – _"A matter of life or death"_ , Bogdan had told him.

"Our hands slipped there", Arkady produced as an apology. "I know my position now, I know it's not acceptable. Igor, it won't happen again."

Igor's eyes scanned his for what seemed like an eternity. Then, he reached for his shoulder with a hand and gave him a couple pats. Porcelain on second-hand leather, Arkady thought.

" _Karasho_. I trust you, Arkady. We plan our next attack now. This is nothing short of a chess game, and thinking is good in chess, but then you have to move your piece. I hate losing a chess match." Igor's words of wisdom had an almost philosophical touch to them. It wouldn't be that bad if we weren't thinking about breaking bones and spilling more blood, Arkady reflected.

"I say we kill him!" Jakov erupted, banging a fist on the counter. Strands of gelled hair fell in strings over his eyes.

"I say you go check on the girls to see who can make it for tonight, Jakov." Igor replied calmly, checking his wrist-watch, "You have less than four hours to organize the evening. We will need at least four girls to replace Vika's talent and Vika's fans in the crowd."

"Oh, you think I don't know, papa?" Jakov almost shouted back, "She was my girlfriend after all, wasn't she, papa?" Struck once again by paternal contempt, every single capillary in Jakov's body seemed about to burst with rage, "And now, some asshole walks all over one of our men," he looked briefly at Arkady, but still somehow disgusted by the fact he couldn't defend himself any better, "drops Vika's name in conversation like it's nothing, and I can't even have to satisfaction to squeeze life out of him with my own bare hands!"

"It wouldn't be your pleasure anyway, Jakov. Arkady's the one who—" Yannis tried, barely suppressing the entertainment Jakov's anger had provided him, before Jakov himself almost leaped over the bar, grabbed him by both the lapels of his pilot jacket, holding him so close that Arkady feared that he could have fractured Yannis' frontal bone against his.

"Don't you fucking dare even _suggesting_ what I should or shouldn't do, Olive Oil", Jakov roared under his breath, fists shaking in their grip around the leather.

"Jakov." Igor called to order, but both men ignored him. Arkady, Misha and Vlad had all stood to their feet. Stares were exchanged from each side of the counter.

"How the fuck did you just called me, jerk?" Yannis roared back in his face, trying to pull himself from the grip to gain just the minimum space required for a side jab. He went for it as Arkady leaned in on the action, trying to break away the tension between the two, mostly holding back Yannis by the armpits, elbows down, wrists up. "Yannis, please." He managed to stop him, Yannis' fist still raised, mid-air. Had a Party member just walked in, he would have been proud to witness that unlikely celebration of Communism.

"You guys act like big men, but all you are is big kids." Igor commented, unimpressed, pouring himself smooth vodka, not even bothering to look at the mussled hair, the confused faces, the panting chests. "If we want a clean and decent exit from this situation, there's only one way to be – a common way. As we were one man. One, lawful, thief. But right now, I'm disappointed in all of you."

"Nice words, papa. No dagger has ever come out clean from the enemy's chest. What would be the point if it did? I'm wasting my time here." Jakov snapped fingers to his Misha and Vlad and left the place with them in his trail. Without any more words, but still carefully loud. Slamming the door, leaning on his gait with all the heaviness of the world – Atlas with no entrusted planet to carry on his shoulders, just the scorn of his disillusioned father.

Igor shook his head, then there was a long pause during which Arkady found his place back on the stool, while Yannis walked around the counter to look for the matches to lit one. He struck one against the counter. Vitaly's snores from the sofa could be heard from Vladivostok.

"What do you want to do, Arkady?" Igor's gaze was an exhausting one to hold, wide grey irises piercing right through anybody who locked eyes with him, "You know, in prison, I read all the time. I had no interest in getting into fights, I had accepted my sentence. Once, a guy called me in a _certain_ way. He joked around. I stabbed him in the eye with a stolen fork and set his cell on fire. Have you accepted your sentence, son?"

"I'm ready to do what's best for the gang's business… and my honor", Arkady replied, as flatly as he could, afraid that even just a square millimeter of his skin could tremble and give him away.

"We should go get the bastard," Yannis interrupted, "And if you're right, Igor, and if we do this right, maybe he'll finally squeak about Vika."

"Vika…" Igor seemed to probe the sound, meaning and taste of the nickname between teeth, tongue and palate, "I'm afraid I've disappointed Jakov, but I cannot give in to reckless violence. He is too young, he has no clue about how to rule, nor live. We don't want to start a war over this, it'll only damage business", he turned once again to Arkady, "Remember, son. Violence is mandatory, but death is deliberate. No killings this time, but a message has to be sent out."

"I'll try to find Stepanovich. I'll show up at their hang-out. I could…"

"That's not enough. We also have to settle the Viktoria's bill, and I'm not just doing this for Jakov. Vika was part of the family, and she was business for us. She _was_ this club. For reasons only God knows, all of our… _activities_ are doing better since she's gone, but what she did here – it was art. You cannot replace art. And if they really know something about her, they have to pay for it. In prison, I burned down that man's cell, and there was no woman involved. No artistic sensibility was offended. "

"We get it", Yannis concluded with his typical smirk, pressing his cigarette down in the ashtray, "Say bye bye to the Cafè Pavlov, _druzya_."

"Try to talk some sense into Jakov, Arkady." Igor continued, "You're the only one who can barely handle him. Maybe he could be of some help with this." He fastened the cap on the bottle, "It's all for now. I'm back to the office to do some accounting. Income was good this month. We have enough to spare from the _obochek_ for some consistent bribing."

A couple more pats on the back, and Igor was gone. Arkady felt like he needed a couple more drinks – water mostly, the tall glass kind of. So he had to go find the brute who had completely lost his control – not just at the Headquarters, just straight-up along the way. So he had to burn down the front operation of said brute's gang. His temple began to throb in pain, and he felt something warm and dark drip over his left eye, getting caught between his eyelids as they tried to battle it.

Yannis noticed it through the bottom of his empty glass, "Hey, are you okay? Fuck man, you're bleeding again! I knew I should have stitched your brow too, why didn't you let me?"

"I'm not really a fan of Paul Muni, and all your… all of your American movies, Vanya."

"God, shut up", Yannis smiled as he started pressing with a paper napkin on Arkady's forehead, "Hold it like this. Do I have to do everything around here?"

Arkady smiled back. The fact Yannis would have been around and able to hold his own once he had finally gotten out of the gang, back to the Militsyia and his old life, somehow comforted him more than having him around all the time. He forced himself not to feel disloyal to the man, busying his head again with thoughts of all the unescapable misdeeds to come.


	5. Chapter 5

A piece of yellow paper hung on the fridge-door. Sloppy and hopeful, the blue ink on it was distributed in regular, round shapes, shamelessly inclined to the right – the mark of an unapologetical extrovert, Arkady observed.

" _Went out for a job, took the metro, Lada yours for today - BB smuggling shit today, same hour as usual, Nikolai's car repair shop. Go talk to the little jerk. Fridge empty! We move out today. See you later, druk!_

 _Y"_

The fridge was indeed empty, except for a single steak gone blue, an egg and empty carton of _moloko_. Sleep still vaguely clouding his judgement, Arkady tapped the egg on the edge of the fridge-door and started drinking it. Disgusting, but his train of thoughts seemed to be leaving the station.

In Yannis' language, BB stood for Blonde Brat, and Blond Brat stood for Jakov. Arkady yawned as he crushed the dry egg with one hand and proceeded to throw it in the sink. He walked to the window and gently pulled aside the flowery curtain. Saturday morning, sunny but cold. Perfect day to move – a tradition of the Code, one more bullet point in the Thieves' vow of poverty: no money, no family, no apartment of your own. Spend what you earn, love what makes you free, share with your brothers as much power as you can. That flat had begun to stink anyway.

As Arkady stepped into the street, a weak sun shed light on what he had to do. Find Jakov, talk to him. All in all, that was a beautiful morning for black market. Menthol cigarettes, Japanese tape recorders, Scotch whiskey, denim jeans, jazz records – Jakov was in charge of the operation: he even had the decency to supervise business from time to time. Everyone knew when and where, and everybody came to spend their rubles to get a glimpse of Western civilization. Russian money to dream the American dream – probably a disturbed one, Arkady thought. That, he knew something about. He hadn't stopped dreaming about Irina, not for one night. He wasn't even sure he wanted to stop; as bitter as the aftermath of each and every nightmare tasted, much like blood and venom under his tongue, he would have never traded this exquisite brand of pain with any other one. After all, he concluded, he hadn't been tortured, drugged, interrogated by the KGB for days on end just to give it all up for nothing; at least, not for a few REM cycles gone horribly wrong. He had protected her in the world, he could easily protect what was left of her, inside him.

"Yes, but she still slipped through your fingers like water", remorse and frustration echoed in his head, wearing his own voice in vicious whispers. He braked, slammed the door shut, got out of the car, locked it, and started walking towards Nikolai's garage on Arbat street. His every movement seemed to be punctuated by guilt, "So much for protection", it said – over and over. That was the very same reason Arkady had learned to hate his own company. His seemingly endless ability to build paper castles in then silent box of his mind, only to set them on fire in bouts of deliberate spite, didn't quite entertain him as much as, say, Yannis' ability to drive.

The shutters of the garage were a little more than half-way to the ground, and all Arkady could imagine behind it was given away by the busy shuffling of many pairs of shoes on the concrete. The code was three knocks and a longer, harder bang on the metal, but Arkady was absolutely in no mood for that. He lowered his head, bended his back, and in a smooth rotation he was in. Athlete of the underworld, he thought with a bitter smirk.

By all Soviet standards, this was one huge garage. A grim and dim neon light hovered from the ceiling, casually buzzing and crackling when needed. Somehow, the room looked green, an aquarium whose fishes were too busy to swim in to give a damn about its putrescent water. Boxes were piled on all sides; they were stacked on the back in a sand-colored wall of smuggled delights, behind the only car really to be repaired, a yellow Lada whose hood was open, uncovering metal and wires that probably hadn't been warm for months now. Some boxes had been hoarded in tiny heaps around which businessmen in tracksuits closed deals, mumbling negotiations, nodding and shaking their heads vigorously over, shaking hands, shaking fists and fingers. The contents were safely concealed here, spilled on the ground there – Nikolai himself, the old mechanic, sat on a small chair in the corner, eyes narrowed by his own smoke, packs of Marlboros all around him, blazing red Nike running shoes on his feet.

Arkady moved slowly, casually bumping shoulders with buyers, raising a hand from time to time to greet and acknowledge the existence of the men dealing; after all, they all worked for Jakov, and Jakov and Arkady were nothing less than blood brothers in the eyes of everyone in the Working Unit. He pointed his steps in Nikolai's direction, not even stopping to talk; Nikolai loved small talk at least as much as repairing Ladas, and a tilt of the head to the side would often suffice. This time was no exception either. Arkady thanked the old man with a small twitch of the mouth and proceeded in the direction of the small office, a moldy room whose glass panels allowed sight of the garage from one side, except for its yellow blinds being half-shut. Door ajar, Arkady went for a light push before Vitaly, Jakov's sleepiest 6'5'' henchman, emerged from the room with an empty carton under his arm.

"He's in a mood", Vitaly warned, and walked off. Arkady walked in.

"What now?" Jakov almost cried out, without even looking at him. He slammed both his palms flat on the desk he was working at, a couple rubles flying off to land in dramatically slow twirls on the dirty floor, "I lost the fucking count again."

"Must be really hard to keep up with", Arkady offered, only half sarcastically. Jakov finally raised his gaze from the stacks of banknotes. Arkady grabbed a chair and sat in front of him.

"Well, does that bother you? It doesn't bother me. If only people around here stopped interrupting me every three goddamned seconds. Idiots."

Patience, coolness and diplomatic skills. A true leader, Arkady thought.

"Whatever," Jakov continued, "I hate this shit. I could just take a bunch of this," he grabbed a stack of rubles and started flailing it, "call up a few chicks and spend a whole day at the Ritz. At the Ritz, you know?", Jakov threw the small brick money across the desk, hitting Arkady in the chest, "I don't fucking have to do this."

"That sounds like a plan, Jasha." Arkady calmly set the money back on the desk.

"Don't take the piss, Arkady. What do you want from me, anyway? I'm busy right now."

"I just want to talk to you. It seems like we have some unfinished business with the The Borotviskaya Syndicate." A pause to heighten the effect and lessen the triteness of the clarification that followed, "Stepanovich's bratva."

"I fucking know that!" In one of his outbursts of rage, Jakov raised from his chair at once, shooting darts down at Arkady. "If it were up to me, it'd be war! You don't believe me? Do not test me! There's no point in keeping the streets quiet when blood boils!"

Arkady cleared his voice, his patience clearly being tested. "We have to think this through, Jakov. Retaliation has to be effective, but we should also think about the consequences, we cannot afford—"

Jakov scoffed at least twice louder than necessary. "Consequences! Afford! You sound like my beloved father, but you have no idea what it's really like, _druk."_ Arkady detected a hint of sarcasm. "You all sound like cowards, all you care about are expenses, incomings, bribe this, count that, collect. No passion! Oh right." Yakov hit his forehead with a his palm, faking a sudden enlightenment, "A thief shouldn't show his feelings! Do you fucking know what you sound like, Rubyovksy?"

Arkady didn't feel as if he was really ready for the answer, but he didn't oppose. As he had already fallen behind on potential annotations to Jakov's monologue, he just opted for letting the man let it all out. Plus, the use of his surname – however fake – didn't exactly help with the general hostile turn of the conversation.

Jakov reached down with his index and shoved hard Arkady in the chest. "You sound like a businessman." Again. "You sound like you've never loved someone." Again. "Or at least loved enough for your heart to be worn out by it, every day, inside out. Consumed. Like an old shoe." Enough. Arkady grabbed Jakov's wrist in a single, firm muscular jolt. As Jakov tried to pull free of the grip, Arkady's tight hold only resulted in the younger man slipping over the desk, his ebow and chest down, rubles flooding the dirty floor. Jakov raised his gaze immediately to level with Arkady's, still too shocked by the shift in power to articulate any more invectives.

That surely had never been Arkady's way of taking over a verbal exchange, but for the moment he guessed that it would have to do. One simple gesture and the tide of his blood seemed to come out; he had trespassed, revealing feelings whose cause he was not to reveal, not to Jakov or anyone in the Smolenskaya – he had loved, he had lost, he had been consumed. Only Yannis knew about Irina, and what he knew were half-truths. But instead of feeling remorse, and frustration for his slip-up, he felt relieved. He felt real.

"I know how you feel." Arkady let go of Jakov's fist slowly, one finger at a time. Jakov hesitated for a moment, clearly debating with himself whether to knock Arkady unconscious or saving that for a rainy day, and then just fell back limply on his chair.

"I've never liked you. I know what my father sees in you, but I don't see it. If my father was blind, you would be dead by now. Know that."

"I didn't come here to talk about me."

Jakov ignored him, just droning on, "Thing is, I wonder what Viktoria saw in you." Jakov leaned over the desk again, grabbed a pack of Marlboros and tapped a cigarette out of it. "Because you did let her see you, didn't you _Arkasha_?" Terms of endearment as diminutives, nothing but pure belittlement. She didn't see as much as she showed me, Arkady thought, but kept it to himself. He kept silent at Jakov's insinuations, the truth running much deeper than the young man could imagine, hidden and ingrown towards much more outrageous ramifications.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Arkady hit back, after a short pause. Funny how the reason of such revelations between him and Vika had been Jakov himself; Jakov and his unreliability, Jakov and his furious jealousy, Jakov and his unforgiving pride, Jakov and his tough obsession – more than love. Jakov had been the reason Vika had started confiding in Arkady; there had been times where Arkady had wished it could be the same for him, to serve his heart up on a plate to her, completely, no reserve. Sometimes the self-deception that it could really happen had made him tremble in both fear and excitement, a light fever. She had touched his face once – "I know that something's wrong" she had said, simply. He had broken their gaze, moving his eyes away.

Jakov had raised to his feet again, starting to walk around the desk now, to the side Arkady was sitting at. "Oh, I think you know enough." One night, when the three of them had agreed to go on a job, Jakov hadn't shown up. Vika was there as bait, not her first time, nor her last. She sat by Arkady in the front seat, shaking and holding back tears – betrayal like negative electricity in her nerves. Arkady hadn't said a word, he had just kept driving around; one hour, two hours. By the time he had parked the black Volga by the river bank, she had calmed down. He had given her his jacket, the hole in his sweater feeling like the cold metal of a bullet in his chest. He had put an arm around her, and looking over at the Moskva and the bright skyscraper lights floating far and above it, she had said: "It almost looks like Paris if I'm with you."

Jakov sat on the desk in front of him, looking down. He put one foot down on the edge of the chair, in the plastic angle between Arkady's knees, and pushed it a little across the room, his boot still resting there. Arkady didn't flinch, but raised his eyes to hold Jakov's. Big, blue, as calm as a seaquake. He was a big man, it was a small room, nothing but casual conversation. "Jakov—"

"What now? _'I didn't come here to talk about Vika'_? Well, guess what. I still have a tonne of shit to talk about her. I don't care what you think, feel, or need right now. I loved her. I would have sold my soul on the black market for her not to get hurt."

It crossed Arkady's mind that Jakov's kind of talk was exactly the type of things a confessed criminal would say, ending his deposition. The quake was in the blood around his fists now, just contemplating the idea that Jakov could have done something to Viktoria. Not only dragged her into his rotten world, cheated on her, embarrassed her, made her feel less than the miracle of grace, brains and beauty which she was, but really _touched_ her. He derailed this train of thoughts from his mind, clenching his fists. Things didn't add up. Did Jakov really know as much as he knew about Vika? He must have known at least that she didn't love him anymore. But Jakov was at once too stupid and too smart to do anything about it.

"I'm sorry Jakov, but I don't believe that. You're doing nothing to prove it. It's easy to talk about old shoes, not so much walking in those. I might be a businessman, but you're nothing but a big mouth." Arkady exhaled his cigarette smoke, flicked the butt over the desk, fixed his eyes back on Jakov, ready for the blow.

It came as sure and strong as violent death – Jakov grabbed Arkady's leather jacket, open, by both its edges, and shoved down on the floor. As natural as inhaling carbon monoxide, no friction. The plastic chair fell down beside the two men struggling on the floor. But Arkady did nothing to oppose; this was the reaction he was hoping for. Down on the ground, Jakov's fist hovering mid-air over him (the other still busy around the leather – keeping the target into focus), Arkady went on with provocations, "This is not enough. This is nothing." He faked a sarcastic laugh for dramatic effect. For a moment he felt Jakov's hand loosening his grip, and in the next one knuckles as hard and rough as bark hit him across the face.

"What about this, huh?" Lights went out for a second, and Arkady could feel fluid warmth flowing freely from Yannis' stitches. Bothersome, inconvenient. Arkady kept laughing – he had a way to irritate himself, he couldn't fathom what Jakov must have been going through.

The bad-tempered young man towered over him, confused, somewhat panting; there was no rule in the Thieves Code about hitting a _brat_ , or a supposed one, but Jakov knew that hadn't he been a Brusilovsky, this dishonorable loss of control could have meant death for him as a _Vor_ , possibly a punitive tattoo. The thought was enough for his rage to re-surface: this time, Jakov slammed his fist flat into the floor; Arkady automatically closed his eyes, twisting his neck to the other side. Jakov raised to his feet and walked back to the desk.

"You're fucked in the head." Jakov was facing the wall, his attention suddenly caught by a crack in the naked concrete wall. Arkady tried to feel the extent of his brand new damage, just about around the cheekbone, only resulting into a wet red hand. "I probably am now," he replied dryly.

"Smart ass."

"You'd be amazed, Jakov." Arkady stood up slowly, patted his jacket into place, incidentally extracting a cigarette from his pocket, and then set the chair back on its feet.

A long pause. Arkady waited for Jakov's paranoia to act up.

"I can learn to trust you… about this Stepanovich thing at least. I won't do stupid shit. I know it's your move. Whatever father—whatever it's better for the gang, I'm ready to help."

"Cafè Pavlov. Wednesday, 3:00 AM."

Jakov turned around too look at Arkady – whatever the amount of blood on his face, he didn't seem that impressed. "Alright, I'll be there."

Arkady went resolutely for the door. The best course of action for the remainder of his day would have probably been to go for a transfusion, and he felt a subtle urgency to leave.

"Arkady."

"Yes?"

"I really loved her."

But it had been months since she had felt that way about Jakov. That night on the bank, while Arkady held her, Viktoria had confessed it all. She wanted out, she wanted to leave Jakov, the Jazz Club, and she had found a way, a man – he had promised to help, she had pretended to love him. Once again. Viktoria Dulenkova, a waitress from Ukraine, had no regular permit, no family but an older sister waiting in Kiev – too ill to follow her to Moscow. She had never sung a single song before her nights at Rasputin's.

Vika had told Arkady she didn't feel safe. "Oh, I don't mean right now, Arkasha." She had refused to tell him who this new man was. He protested, "How can I help you then? Vika!" She had simply said, "I know who you are, and that's enough. I know who you are and I don't care. I just wish I had met you before Jakov, before… _him_ , before anybody else." Arkady said nothing, shocked by how peaceful danger felt in the moonlight. He let her listen to his heart skipping a beat, her dark hair floating like sea flowers in the wind, across his chest.


End file.
